If you do good work for good clients, it will lead to other good work for other good clients. If you do bad work for bad clients, it will lead to other bad work for other bad clients.
Michael BierutRead
If typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Typography should enhance the message of the words rather than distract from it.
In this quote, Michael Bierut emphasizes the importance of typography in communication. He argues that when typography draws too much attention to itself, it overshadows the actual content and meaning of the words, suggesting that good design should serve to support and amplify the message rather than detract from it.
Themes
TypographyDesignCommunicationWordsAttention
In practice
Example use cases
In a graphic design workshop, to explain the importance of layout, I might say, 'Remember, if typography is calling attention to itself, it's taking that attention away from what the words are saying.'
More from Michael Bierut
All quotes βSimilar quotes
Having been an actor and a writer for so long - 20 years or so - I felt that it would be daft to go to one's grave without having directed. It's a natural extension of writing and acting, and so I knew it would happen one day.
Stephen FryRead
If I'm going to be anything more than average, if anyone is going to remember me, then I need to go further, in art, in life, in everything!
Salvador DaliRead
A man should dress in a way that you don't notice. He looks good and you don't know why. But it's the tailoring, the materials, and the clothes.
Michael CaineRead
The thing I love about music is that you can take things that are painful, deep things that hurt you, and you can turn them into something beautiful.
Ray LamontagneRead
I'm not the expert on the great gameplay. I come in for the character design, monsters, atmosphere. I'm not the technician.
Clive BarkerRead
The seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they awaken in the mind of man . . . If we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of reality direct upon our pages.
Robert Louis StevensonRead